


Masochist

by smokesmokesmoke



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ...awkward, ...surprisingly, Angst, Canon Era, F/M, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Humor, Non-Linear Narrative, Not As Heavy As It Sounds, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Post-Time Skip, Rating May Change, Semi-Public Sex, Slice of Life, not between MCs, rating has changed: chapter 3, slow to non-existent burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokesmokesmoke/pseuds/smokesmokesmoke
Summary: What do you say to someone who cut out almost half of their healthy lung tissue because of you?Are you well?No, thank you?"The prodigal son returns," he says instead, in a bitter attempt at wit.Seven years later, two high school classmates meet again.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Original Female Character(s), Kuroo Tetsurou/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. 11 July 2020

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Kuroo isn't part of the Japan Volleyball Association's sports promotion division. He is, instead, a clinical research associate. However! I know jack shit about modern medicine. I'm not a doctor and certainly not a doctor in Japan. Hopefully you aren't either so we can all proceed in wilful ignorance. 
> 
> Also, COVID-19? Doesn't exist. Uh. I'm sure you're disappointed? 
> 
> I'm doing my best to stick to canon, but I haven't actually watched the anime in ages and technically, 2020 is post-post-Time Skip, so really I'm just wilding out here by myself. RIP.

_11 July 2020_

His phone rings.

‘Unknown.’ 

Kuroo stares at the caller ID for another moment before picking up; a woman’s voice, nasal and low-toned, cuts through the background noise of the restaurant with ease, startling him. 

“This is Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital. Is this Kuroo Tetsurō?” 

He frowns: “Yes, it is. What is it?” Only Kaneko, his older sister, still lives in Tokyo—but not in Shibuya, where the hospital is located. His parents moved back to Kagoshima after he started university. 

Kenma looks up from his lunch in mild concern; Kuroo waves it off. 

“Matsuzawa Eiji was admitted last night for partial thickness burns on his torso,” the woman cuts in again, sounding interminably bored. Or tired. “I understand you’re a monitor for a clinical trial he’s participating in?”

“Shit!” Fuck. “Sorry, m’am. Yes, I am. I’ll be right there.” He hangs up, standing up to grab his jacket. He extracts a 5000 yen note from his wallet and flattens it out on the table as Kenma looks on in sympathy. 

“Fuck me,” Kuroo mutters in agreement as he walks out the door. What are weekends for anyways?

()

"Kuroo-san; almost fifteen percent of his body surface area was affected by the burn, if not more. He'll be operated on as soon as he consents, and he will, and grafts are already tricky enough without having to factor in how the drugs in your trial might react with the drugs he'll have to take post-op. You have to understand, it's not my call. It's a hospital policy—preventable adverse reactions are always going to be prevented."

()

_Some time earlier_

The nurse eyes him balefully. 

"Who are you?" 

"Kuroo Tetsurō," Kuroo says brightly. "Clinical research associate with Kasai Pharmaceutical. I'm here for Matsuzawa Eiji. He was admitted last night. He's one of the participants in a phase II clinical trial we're conducting, and he has stage IV Hanahaki Disease. Please, could you tell me what room he's in?" 

"Are you his family?" 

"No, I'm not. I work for—" 

The nurse interrupts him with an unhappy look on her face. "Then you won't be able to see him. Visitors to ICU are two per day. He's already had two." 

" _ICU_? He's in the ICU?" 

"Yes. Would you like us to leave a message for Matsuzawa-san? Or come back tomorrow?" 

"Yes, but what about his doctor? Could I see his doctor?" The trial is nearly over, with only one month left to go. Matsuzawa is one of the key participants in his age group and progression of disease. Yamagata, the senior trial monitor, will flay something alive—possibly Kuroo himself—if Matsuzawa's data has to be asterisked or worse, be removed from the sample. 

The nurse types something into her computer. "Yugawa-sensei is appointment-only," she sighs. "Would you like me to call his department and schedule one?" 

"No, thank you," says Kuroo, fighting the urge to (politely) grind his forehead into the counter. "Is there anyone available who might know about Matsuzawa-kun's current condition? He has stage IV Hanahaki, it's—" 

A second nurse pipes up from the back of the station. 

"Check his admission file, Yoshiba. The ER attending might still be around." 

More typing. 

"Suzuki-sensei went home," Yoshiba reports unhelpfully. 

The second nurse rises and walks around to the computer, giving him a brief smile. Kuroo returns the gesture warmly. Is this his saviour? 

"Yoshiba, take, ah—" 

"Kuroo Tetsurō," he supplies, helpfully. 

"Take Kuroo-san to the ER. One of the residents will've been around when Matsuzawa was assessed. _Then_ you can tell him to stop bothering us and leave, alright?" 

He bows aggressively. "Thank you so much, nurse..." 

"Nurse Watanabe," she says with a wink. A wink! She's old enough to be his mother! No matter how old his soul might be, he's not— "Good luck with the trial, Kuroo-kun. Hanahaki Disease is an awful one." 

He swallows. Understatement of the century. "Thank you," he says, bowing again. 

It's a short walk to the ER. Yoshiba tells him to wait outside before scanning her ID badge to open the doors. He watches her approach a tall, white-coated doctor on the far side of the room, exchanging a few words, and then nearer to Kuroo, a shorter, blue-scrubbed doctor standing over an empty bed; a conversation starts up between the two. From her side profile, he thinks the doctor—this must be his mystery resident, right?—is a young woman as well; Yoshiba is nodding vigorously. Then she bows several times in succession—it looks like she's apologising? The doctor strips her gloves and pivots away from Kuroo, and several metres away, another doctor (another resident, or even an intern, he thinks, from the baby fat still clinging to his cheeks) nods just as vigorously. 

Finally, the doctor turns in his direction and looks up; her eyes connect with his from across the room and through the glass sliding doors, they take his breath away.

_…Fukukaichō._

Her face is just as vivid as it was when she was a teenager, square-chinned and slit-eyed. But so thin, now. So thin.

()

_"You should suffer too, you should love her...! You should..."_

_"...the end of an era..."_

_"What have I done? What have I done?! Oh, my god, I can't..."_

_"It'll be a little less cruel, don't you think? Without me?"_

()

_Three months later_

"Are you gonna come back? To Tokyo?"

"Of course. It's my home."

()

He closes his eyes and turns away, reflexively. There's nowhere to hide. Kuroo is stranded in a desert of tile and sterile human sound. It's July; Tokyo is experiencing one of the hottest summers on record. 

"Kuroo-san." It's the woman who called earlier, with the radio talk-show host voice. Her voice warms in his hands like a glass of cold water, and he feels light-headed and heavy-chested at the same time. "Nice to see you, too."

()

_Have I suffered enough for you now?_

()

Kuroo opens his eyes. "Hi," he says, and wants to say more, but what do you say to someone who cut out almost half of their healthy lung tissue because of you? 

_Are you well?_

_No, thank you?_

"The prodigal son returns," he says instead, in a bitter attempt at wit. 

Seki laughs. Actually laughs. Even if the sound is more akin to a polite cough, Kuroo is instantly, profoundly relieved; like he has just woken up from a nightmare to realise it was only that. He unclenches, a little.

"What about Matsuzawa?" 

Blunt as ever. 

"You know he has stage IV Hanahaki, right?" 

Seki blinks at him. "Of course I do," she says. "It was in his file. Oral antifungals twice a day, steroids and cleaners three times a week—I assume the antifungals are what you're trialling?" 

Kuroo nods rapidly. "He's been making progress. The mass in his lungs is the same size it was two months ago, and his MRIs haven't shown any sign of increased root or stem tissue. We think—"

"Why are you telling me this? It's _burns_ he was admitted for. He's going to have to get a graft, not a lung dissection."

"Are they going to take him off the antifungals?"

"...So that's what you wanted to know. Yes, they probably will. They won't want the graft to reject because of a fancy new medication some company's dying to get on the shelves." 

Seki looks at him critically; he's been rendered speechless. Fancy new medication? On the _shelves_? What kind of—

"This fancy new medication is possibly saving Matsuzawa-kun's life," Kuroo retorts angrily. "He's at 89% immersion. Before the trial he was progressing at 2% every week. Take him off and he'll be at 95 before the grafts have even had a chance to reject."

"Are you sure it isn't the cleaners saving his life?" Seki's voice is pure acid. "If I do recall correctly—they work pretty well." 

Kuroo colours. 

"Kuroo-san," she starts again. She looks straight at him. She looks like she hasn't slept in years: her under-eyes are vast and sunken and her skin is sallow, tight. What is he searching for, in her face? He doesn't know. The space where her heart used to be? _She never had one_ , a voice in his head says, acerbic.

"Almost fifteen percent of his body surface area was..."


	2. 16-17 April 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Kuroo Tetsurō, at least, recognises you. Having been classmates for the last two years means that you know each other's faces at short distance. Although half a gymnasium is probably pushing it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now jump back eight years to a new POV, a host of new OCs, and general confusion. Uh. Paying attention to the chapter titles and time stamps will probably be in your best interest going forward.

_16 April 2012_

"Is it Gymnasium B?" 

Akita nods. You ignore him out of kindness and consideration. His acne really is horrendous, as is his lack of common sense.

"Saeki, let Gakuto-kun know where I am? Shinohara-kun too. But if Yamamoto ever asks, I'm still in the faculty room for the damn copier." 

This is because the first-floor copier broke down on the first week of school. It means a 1000 yen loss on the first bet you made with Gakuto, but you have another thousand riding on the second bet: whether the copier'll be fixed in the first semester or the second. 

Saeki shoots you a no-look thumbs-up from behind his computer. The beginning of the semester is never fun for the treasurer of the student council—he slims down like a popsicle on a hot day from the stress. Having known him for a year already, part of you thinks he likes it. He's not ranked third in the class for lack of trying.

Satisfied, you gather your things: phone, wallet, blazer, coat, pen and pencil. Going from the student council room (first floor, end of the east wing) to the gymnasiums (directly behind the main building) is actually kind of a trip, thanks to the absolute inanity of a floor plan Metropolitan Nekoma High was blessed with at construction. In fact, it's almost ten minutes at a decidedly clipped pace before you find yourself standing in front of Gymnasium B, the smaller twin of Gymnasium A. 

Only slightly out of breath, you slide open the doors with unexpected subtlety. 

And survey the landscape.

It's pretty normal, so your mood takes an instant nosedive from Pissed to Nonfatal Injury. Two nets and a group of sweaty guys split into subgroups of various size, running drills of various type and doing exercises of various fucking variety. You're not sure what you were expecting, honestly. It's not like missing paperwork negatively affects the team, not in the short run. It's the student council and school administrators who suffer subsequently for that cardinal sin of sloth.

You spot the coach right away. Old geezer, is Nekomata Yasufumi. He's currently standing to the side of the gym, speaking quietly to a group of enthusiastically-nodding sycophants; you feel the left side of your face spasm and fight to keep the right side from following. 

It doesn't take very long for the team to notice their intruder, but if the confused tone of the whispers is anything to go by, most of them have never seen you before. This is perfectly fine by you. It only confirms the fact that no one, absolutely not a single human soul, pays attention during the school entrance ceremony. 

Kuroo Tetsurō, at least, recognises you. Having been classmates for the last two years means that you know each other's faces at short distance. Although half a gymnasium is probably pushing it. 

You wave off Kuroo with a dismissive gesture and beeline for Nekomata. He follows anyways, and you roll your eyes. You roll your eyes a lot: it's kind of an unconscious reflex, a lot like breathing. 

"Nekomata-san, Kuroo-kun," you say formally, bowing appropriately. When you straighten, you feel an acute sense of shortness. Christ. How tall do they grow? "I'm Seki Adakichi. Vice-president of the student council, unfortunately." You flash a warm, white smile and tug at your sleeves shyly. "I'm sorry to interrupt you. You must've been very busy?"

"No, no," Nekomata is compelled to say, although his glances at the first years who have now scattered give him away easily. Kuroo is impassive, but attentive. "How can I help you, Seki-kun?" 

How to begin? You wish you could rip out a piece of paper and detail it with a list of your grievances, Thomas Jefferson-style, but this is modern Japan and you have no paper on hand. 

You pretend to think on it for a moment. "Your team still doesn't have a manager," you start; you correct your expression to one of concerned neutrality and continue, "Since it's now two weeks into the semester... well, is there an issue the school was previously unaware of?" 

Both Nekomata and Kuroo look identically thoughtful. It makes you want to throttle something. Maybe not the old man (disrespectful) or Kuroo (too hard), but a first year, or Akita (your worthless downgrade of a club coordinator) would do nicely. 

"Qualifiers for Kantō don't start until May," Kuroo responds calmly. "We're still interviewing." 

You think you might be allergic to incompetence. It actually brings tears to your eyes. 

"All sports teams are _required_ to have at least one manager," you say, drumming your fingers against your skirt in impatience. "Not having one, hm. Managers are responsible for the mandatory paperwork that the school assigns each club at the start of every semester. In your case, that paperwork is now _late_. They do have their uses, I'm afraid." A light, glittering smile hammers home that point, followed by a small huff. You're tired of this routine. Missing paperwork, missing truck order, missing manager, missing this and missing that—you swear half your workload is just nagging. You hate nagging but you're very good at it, which means you do a lot of it. 

"...How many applications have you had for the position?" you say at last.

Nekomata looks to Kuroo, who shrugs. "A lot," your former classmate says through a sharp-toothed smile. "It's taking a while to get through them. And—what paperwork?"

Your eyebrows begin the slow march up towards your hairline. This isn't the most pathetic excuse you've heard, but it is one of the most lazy. 

"You must've been very busy," you repeat brightly. You feel your eyes starting to roll back, so you fix your gaze on a spot somewhere on Kuroo's face that isn't his eyes and say, "It's the student council's job to help out when students feel overwhelmed, especially with club activities. Now, where are these applications?"

()

There are sixty-two of them. It's maybe a little horrifying. 

You hand them off to Miya Gakuto, the publicist, to sift through. Ex-boyfriend he might be, but you still like his company. (You aren't sure if he feels the same way. You don't think he does, honestly.) You'd have made Akita do it if he weren't so intolerable to be around, or maybe Shinohara or Takahashi if they weren't so dumb. Well, Takahashi isn't here at the moment—as the secretary, she goes where Yamamoto goes, and as usual, Yamamoto is nowhere to be seen.

Two birds, one stone.

"No first years," you list off to Gakuto. "No spelling or grammar mistakes. No stupid clubs. And no stupid people. If there's a transcript, no grades below... no grades below 60. Actually, if there are any boys, they can be first years. Everything else still holds."

Gakuto only laughs. He's used to your colloquialisms by now and understands, for the most part, what you mean by 'no stupid people'. 

The pretty fucker works quickly too. In the time that it takes you to go through the truck orders for the badminton, baseball, and biology clubs, he's whittled the number of applications down to twenty-five. 

"Are they all girls?" 

"One boy." 

You smile to yourself. "Can I see it?" 

As it turns out, Chiba Giichi is a second year; he was in the mathematics club last year, and played handball in junior high. Close enough, right? You have no idea. He's a little ugly; he's fucking perfect. If there's any proof of God, it has to be Chiba's application for boys' volleyball team manager.

"He wins?" Gakuto asks once he sees the satisfaction on your face. Shinohara, the class coordinator, looks up in interest; he's sorting through class representative forms so anything is interesting. Saeki, as usual, stays glued to the computer. He could probably assimilate himself into an Excel spreadsheet if he tried hard enough. His bangs look like they already have, with how straight and long they are.

"He wins," you confirm. "Shinohara-kun, will you let him know to meet me in the student council room at lunch tomorrow? He's in class... hm. Good question. Class 2-F." 

()

As expected, Chiba Giichi is great. You send him back to class with a one-inch binder full of forms, firm instructions to have them back in exactly three days' time, and the knowledge that practice is at 3:15 in Gymnasium B every day of the week except for Wednesday. You are, perhaps, overly gleeful.

()

After school, you're having another useless argument with Yamamoto when lo and behold, Kuroo Tetsurō, volleyball extraordinaire, steps through the door to the student council room. He's brought a short, brown-haired boy with him, and looks distinctly sour. The boy—his teammate, judging by the outfit—is far more bored-looking. 

Always a great lover of schadenfreude, you perk up at his entrance. 

Yamamoto also perks up. With a great cry of "Tetsu!", she flings herself out of her chair and wraps up Kuroo in a tight hug. "I didn't know you were gonna stop by!" 

Kuroo ruffles her hair and gives the hem of her skirt a sharp tug. "Me neither," he says, face softening. You didn't know his face could do that. "What are you up to?" 

"You know, just work," sighs Yamamoto, previous woes already forgotten. "I'm almost done." 

You watch them for a moment—Yamamoto's adoration, Kuroo's fondness—before whispering, "Shinohara-kun," and when he looks your way, you note his expression of amusement; good man. "Shinohara-kun, check your email."

Once he does, he has to stifle his laugh with an inconspicuous cough. 

"What's wrong?" says Yamamoto in a moment of concern.

Shinohara waves his hand. "My friend sent me a funny message, that's all." 

"Ooh, let me see!" 

"It's an inside joke," Shinohara replies, apologetic. "You won't get it." 

In spite of his handsome face and low class ranking, Shinohara is apparently a quick thinker. Your mental assessment of him rises, slightly more than marginally. 

After Yamamoto is appeased and her attention diverted, Shinohara glances at you, as does Gakuto. The former says, "Are you sure?" while the latter only rolls his eyes. "Get used to it," Gakuto mutters. His face is unsoftened. "What Adakichi wants, Adakichi gets. Just send the thing before she does it herself." 

You bristle at what is admittedly an accurate insight. Still, " _Adakichi_ gets what Adakichi wants because what Adakichi wants is most _efficient_." A familiar annoyance rises within you and you hiss, "And won't waste everyone's time trying to track down forty-three students for a single fucking meeting. Or, God forbid, holding the same meeting three times over. 

"Forward the email, Shinohara. The class representatives can 'build school spirit' damn well by themselves."

"Okay, okay," says Shinohara, visibly cowed. "I'll forward it." 

You lean back in your chair, briefly content. Kuroo and Yamamoto are still conversing by the door, bodies angling towards each other in clear intimacy. It's interesting in an idle way, kind of like coming across an unusual designer dog breed on the streets.

Finally, Kuroo's teammate looks up from his phone and clears his throat in obvious disgust.

"Can we skip to the end already? I think I'm developing pancreatic cancer." 

Kuroo mock-pouts. "Yakkun..." 

Yaku ignores him, and turns in your direction. He looks mildly constipated, with how his lip is curled. "Seki-fukukaichō, we have a complaint to lodge with you." 

Silence falls over the room as Kuroo nods along in agreement. Even Saeki stops typing. 

"So lodge it," you reply, biting your lip to hide a smile. "What's wrong?" 

"It's not that there's anything _wrong_ with Chiba-kun, but you should've at least let us take a look at the final candidates," Yaku says right off the bat. He's very passionately indignant. You try not to let on how hilarious you find this. "He's _our_ manager, you know. We shouldn't have been left out of it. And... _and_ he's a—" Yaku is cut off by a sharp elbow to the ribs. 

"Who's Chiba?" Yamamoto interjects, obviously unhappy. "What's going on?" 

"A very nice young man," you inform her before anyone else can, "who, starting today, is the new manager of the boys' volleyball team. What, is he too ugly for you?" You finally erupt into a spate of full-throated laughter. "Or the wrong sex, maybe?"

Yamamoto turns back towards Kuroo, wearing an expression of severe affront. 

"Are you here because your manager isn't a _girl_?"

Ah, so she isn't entirely slow. 


	3. 11 July 2020, cont.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The last time Kuroo spoke to him, there was a three-minute segment on Adélie penguins that segued into a five-minute tangent on matriarchal societies. He thinks it's the lifestyle of a professional athlete that's done most of the damage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "Kuroo-san," she starts again. She looks straight at him. She looks like she hasn't slept in years: her under-eyes are vast and sunken and her skin is sallow, tight. What is he searching for, in her face? He doesn't know. The space where her heart used to be? _She never had one_ , a voice in his head says, acerbic.

Kuroo has been stunned. This is the best way to describe his mental state as he leaves the hospital, enters Shibuya Station (JY-20) and gets on the Yamanote Line towards Ueno. 

He's hungry. He feels like he's been fasting for seven years and didn't know it. But his stomach is in open revolt, now that he's eating again. 

Kuroo tries really fucking hard to be honest with himself, and he knows he can be passive-aggressive like this. Castigating himself when he doesn't deserve it and feeling sorry for himself when he doesn't deserve it. How else is he supposed to deal? Other people buy flowers for their lovers. Kuroo tells all of his lays about the classmate he accidentally killed off in high school and watches them run out of his life. One girl even wrote her number down on the notepad next to his computer, and when he called, someone named Dr Hanazono answered. Some bullshit.

Harajuku, Yoyogi, Shinjuku, Shin-Ōkubo, Takadanobaba, Mejiro, Ikebukuro. Approaching Ōtsuka... 

Kuroo watches the subway stations pass him by in a blur of rampant self-pity. At this rate, by the time he makes it to Ueno, he'll have made it to hell first. _Kuroo_ , he admonishes himself. 

Wake up. You need to wake up. You need to wake the fuck up.

If he wants to camp out in the hospital and wait for Seki to leave so he can follow her home and watch her be alive, isn't that only natural? 

He has so many questions. 

Where does she even live? Tokyo is a lot more expensive than it used to be. How much is her rent? What does her furniture look like? Her bathroom? Is everything spotless, or is it a garbage dump? How does she decide what to eat? Did she ever adopt a dog? Does she still want to? How is her family, her brother? Shit, _does_ she eat?

Has she changed very much in these last seven years? 

He suddenly realises that this is why he feels so stunned. She hasn't. Hasn't changed very much. Seki is still good at her job, without a doubt. In high school, Seki never did anything she wasn't good at it: some kind of chicken or the egg question, destined to remain forever unsolved. Fundamental law, fixed axis. It's still there.

Even so, when he actually thinks on it, he doesn't remember much of what Seki was like. Seven years will do that to a person. Erase them slowly, lines fading until only random things remain: the bump of an elbow, an untucked strand of hair. His memories of her are a photo album with most of the photos missing, and the snapshots he has left are confusingly insignificant. Seki smoking a cigarette in the dark, head bowed and shoulders relaxed; Seki slumped in a lawn chair, not looking at him; Seki in the student council room, chatting with Miya Gakuto; Seki in a convenience store, buying chocolate milk. They fail to coalesce. In Kuroo's mind, Seki Adakichi (aged seventeen) was an asshole, possessed of a biting wit and prone to periods of neuroticism. He doesn't remember what any of this really felt like; only he must've thought it at some point, and now he knows it like he knows water boils at 100 degrees. Fucking irrelevant.

He wonders what she thought of him, when she saw him. 

_A fancy new medication some company's dying to get on the shelves._

It stings more than it should. Is that what she thinks? That he's a quack, or worse, a sell-out? 

Kuroo isn't a sell-out. He _cares_. He makes an effort, makes a point. He knows the medical files of his thirty-three patients inside out; knows their feelings, what they hope for, what they're afraid to hope for. For some of them, he knows who they love. Matsuzawa Eiji is one of them: he loves a girl three years his senior, his upperclassman in college, where they both studied chemistry. Said girl is engaged to her high school sweetheart. It's laughable.

Matsuzawa has had Hanahaki Disease for five months—the faster-progressing variant, characterised by annual plants, like marigolds—and is very close to the 95% immersion mark that will make him an immediate candidate for surgery. He doesn't want the surgery, not yet, but he'll come around eventually. Death from Hanahaki is relatively rare in Japan, especially when compared to general suicide rates. Matsuzawa has family. He'll come around. Kuroo doesn't know what it says about him that he knows this, but he can't—he won't—blame himself for prioritising Matsuzawa's life above all else.

Kuroo isn't a sell-out. It makes him beyond furious, that Seki might imply it to be so. 

What does she remember of him? 

Does she still love him? 

Does she remember what it felt like, to love him?

This train of thought is so ridiculous it makes him snort, involuntarily and unattractively. A young schoolgirl glances at him from a few seats over, and Kuroo quickly turns on his phone so he can stare blankly at the screen. It alerts him to a message from Kenma: [everything ok?]

Kuroo:

[someone from the trial got hurt, but everything else is a-ok] 

Kenma has always been ambivalent towards Seki. He wonders how he would react, if Kuroo were to tell him: _Kenma, guess what. I ran into Seki today. Remember? Seki Adakichi, from high school. The girl who—_

Well, it isn't going to happen. He doesn't keep much from Kenma, but this and his trip to Okinawa in his second year of university are some of the only things. He knows what Kenma would say to both scenarios: _So what?_

And Kuroo wouldn't know how to answer. It's one of those conversations he has with himself every time he gets sentimental, usually on a long drive or the Shinkansen, and ends up with the same result every time: _So what?_ I care. _So what?_ I care. There's no end to it.

Kenma: 

[ok]

[working tmrw too?] 

Another incoming call, before he can respond. This time, it's Bokuto. Kuroo knows right away what he's calling about and cuts him off as soon as he picks up: "I forgot! You're _loud_ , shit. I'm _coming_.

"No, Kenma isn't coming. He thinks it's overpriced bullshit."

A pause, as Bokuto rails on about the psychological intangibles of an afterparty in one of Tokyo's most expensive districts. He might actually be making a good point, but Kuroo tunes it out. To no one's surprise, Bokuto hasn't mellowed out with age. He's only gotten weirder. The last time Kuroo spoke to him, there was a three-minute segment on Adélie penguins that segued into a five-minute tangent on matriarchal societies. He thinks it's the lifestyle of a professional athlete that's done most of the damage.

"Well, it is. Anyways, I was just coming from Shibuya. Can't say I'm going to miss it. When are you guys heading out?"

The reason why Bokuto is in Tokyo is because MSBY Black Jackal is in Tokyo. A three-game away stretch, a loss-win-win—none of which Kuroo has been able to witness. He'd actually planned on going to the last game with Kenma this afternoon, but obviously, he was derailed. And now this. Well, Kuroo can't say he isn't the mood for a drink. He's far past that, really; he's in the mood for an evening he won't remember in the morning. 

"Okay, okay. I'll be there. Damn, yes, I'll remember."

Ueno Station (JY-05) arrives and he tells Bokuto that he's hanging up. It's too loud in the station to hear anyways.

He texts Kenma back on his way out.

[yea]

[back to the hospital]

[:'-)]

()

Somewhere along the line, Bokuto starts singing to his drink. It's really obnoxious. So is his drink: an electric blue concoction with a plastic butterfly floating somewhere in the ice cubes. It's some ugly shit, so Kuroo gets up and joins the dance floor. 

It's some ugly shit.

The club is packed to the gills. Bottom of the ocean floor-type detritus. A group of pro athletes is like a whale fall to these suckers. Kuroo looks on blearily. He's about halfway through a bottle of vodka he isn't paying for and isn't enjoying. 

The girl that's been grinding up against him for the last few minutes shouts something into his ear and palms his dick right after. He jerks into it, smiles faintly. 

"Sure, sure," says Kuroo, and lets himself be led into the bathroom. A row of grimy stalls stares back at him: get fucked. Get fucked up.

He looks down at this girl: short, short-haired, yellow-skinned in the filmy club lighting. Too skinny to be his type exactly, but he sets the vodka down and fucks her anyway. He pushes her down onto the toilet until her cheek is pressed into the tank, and she comes with a cry that hurts his ears. The rest of the way, they fuck in silent staccato. The trap music filtering through the walls is as dead as they are; the profanities that they exchange occasionally have nothing to do with each other.

Kuroo watches her toss the condom and fix her hair like some kind of sex janitor, and thinks that he either needs to stop drinking vodka or do this again as soon as possible. Swim or sink, fly or—

"Get out," the girl says to him, not unkindly, smacking her lips together.

He goes. 

Bokuto is asleep at the table when he goes back. The captain, Meian Shūgo, raises his drink and a delicate eyebrow in greeting. 

"Are you okay?" he asks. 

"No," scowls Kuroo. He's never seen the thirty year-old drink anything stronger than a martini, and never more than two in a night. Meian is in the wrong kind of club. "Shit, why are you even here?" 

Laughing, he nods towards a group of college-age girls hanging off what he thinks is Inunaki, Miya, and Adriah Thomas. Three different shades of blond, blond, blond. Jesus fuck, it's irritating.

"I got kids," Meian says dryly. 

As if to prove his point, Bokuto lets out a loud snore from beside him. Kuroo smacks him on the shoulder, but he doesn't even budge. What the fuck.

"Do you really?" 

Meian looks at him oddly. "No. If I actually had kids"—damn, why is he laughing so much?—"I wouldn't be here. I probably wouldn't even be playing volleyball. Not professionally, at least." 

"Do you want them?" 

"Yeah, I guess. Eventually. What about you?" 

Kuroo nods sagely. He's sobered up some, mostly from the sex, but it's left him feeling adrift, a moth without flame.

()

The subway almost gets him, but he makes it home without puking once. 

He's hungry again.


End file.
